3071-The political economy of new slavery

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Trafficking and International Law
David Ould
Human rights must be at the core of any credible anti-trafficking
strategy and...we must work from the perspective of those who most
need their human rights protected and promoted...By placing
human rights at the centre of our analysis, we are forced to consider
the needs of the trafficked person.
Mary Robinson 1
Introduction
Trafficking in persons has increasingly caught the world’s attention over
the past few years as a significant and growing human rights problem.
Yet, it has proved particularly difficult to develop the necessary international
legal standards and definitions to draw generally accepted
distinctions between trafficking, smuggling and migration, and the
accompanying coercive and voluntary elements of these. The increasing
concern about levels of migration, both legal and illegal, in the rich
world has made this distinction more important, but also more difficult
to agree upon. Globally a market for irregular migration services has
emerged, in which the mechanisms and forms of organization are
still relatively unknown. As irregular migrants using these services are
exposed both to unscrupulous service providers and to the immigration
and policing authorities, the line between exploitation of migrant
workers, and trafficking, is increasingly blurred, and the need for strong
human rights protection becomes more acute.
Labour migration has been increasing strongly over the past 20 years
and most forecasters expect this to increase rather than decrease,
notwithstanding the restrictions and difficulties of securing travelling
papers and jobs and the efforts to curb or manage such movements.
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